My Skoda Rapid 1.5L DSG, Elegance : Initial ownership experience

This is a discussion on My Skoda Rapid 1.5L DSG, Elegance : Initial ownership experience within Test-Drives & Initial Ownership Reports, part of the Team-BHP Reviews category; Originally Posted by charansuki
I wanted to write an update soon. I was waiting for the 7500 kms check up ...

I wanted to write an update soon. I was waiting for the 7500 kms check up to be completed before I updated. However, now that there is an interest I will summarize my opinions now and will later add an entry for my service experience

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiran_cr

There are so many posts about the awesomeness of Rapid Diesel + DSG combo. Each and everything said about that is absolutely true. Loved every bit of the drive.

Hey guys, thanks for the detailed writeups and the continued updates. Its plesantly surprising to see more and more enthusiasts turning AT loyals.

BTW, I'm in the market for an upgrade to my MS Esteem VXi that is soon turning 10. While the Rapid and Vento DSGs are in my consideration, stories of the DSG issues give me the jitters. Honestly, I'm losing sleep over not being able to convince myself to settle for one of the siblings. I have TDed both cars extensively and find the convenience of an AT gearbox liberating in a city that can easily pride itself as the traffic capital of India.

While I sincerely hope that you have had no issues with your AT gearboxes, can you please share anything you may have found or experienced otherwise?

Hey guys, thanks for the detailed writeups and the continued updates. Its plesantly surprising to see more and more enthusiasts turning AT loyals.

BTW, I'm in the market for an upgrade to my MS Esteem VXi that is soon turning 10. While the Rapid and Vento DSGs are in my consideration, stories of the DSG issues give me the jitters. Honestly, I'm losing sleep over not being able to convince myself to settle for one of the siblings. I have TDed both cars extensively and find the convenience of an AT gearbox liberating in a city that can easily pride itself as the traffic capital of India.

While I sincerely hope that you have had no issues with your AT gearboxes, can you please share anything you may have found or experienced otherwise?

Thanks in anticipation of a response.

Its buttersmooth to drive. If you are in the passenger seat or at the back, you wont even realise that its a diesel mill working under the hood.
That said DSG have had realibility issues which VW group have supposedly fixed by using mineral oil instead of synthetic for its transmissions. Neverthless it would be better to take extended warranty just to be fuss free. I drive in very congested roads in bangalore and take it out on highways frequently and its been nothing short of a bliss to drive this car.
I would suggest you to go ahead with the purchase.

Its buttersmooth to drive. If you are in the passenger seat or at the back, you wont even realise that its a diesel mill working under the hood.
That said DSG have had realibility issues which VW group have supposedly fixed by using mineral oil instead of synthetic for its transmissions. Neverthless it would be better to take extended warranty just to be fuss free. I drive in very congested roads in bangalore and take it out on highways frequently and its been nothing short of a bliss to drive this car.
I would suggest you to go ahead with the purchase.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Really appreciate it. I will take a long TD again early next week. In fact, Vinayak is offering free insurance and warranty as part of the July offer.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Really appreciate it. I will take a long TD again early next week. In fact, Vinayak is offering free insurance and warranty as part of the July offer.

My shortlist looks somewhat like this:

S-Cross DDiS200

Rapid TDi DSG

Ecosport TDi

Jazz - Almost ruled out

Lucky you. Thats around 55k savings for you. Yes skoda is running a sales promo where insurance and EW are offered for free. Take a long TD on all sorts of tarmac and decide. Just get a quote from Tafe as well. If you need a contact at Tafe, pm me i ll provide the SA's number who handled my purchase. Bargain hard to get a good deal.

Its buttersmooth to drive. If you are in the passenger seat or at the back, you wont even realise that its a diesel mill working under the hood.
That said DSG have had realibility issues which VW group have supposedly fixed by using mineral oil instead of synthetic for its transmissions. Neverthless it would be better to take extended warranty just to be fuss free. I drive in very congested roads in bangalore and take it out on highways frequently and its been nothing short of a bliss to drive this car.
I would suggest you to go ahead with the purchase.

Hi Kiran, Which month did u get your car? I got my car delivered last month.
I have some queries if you can address them

1: Did u buy your extended warranty? if yes, then after how long did u received them from Akoda?
2: Do you find any kinda jerks or judder in the Dsg when the car moves from d1 to d2 ? Mine does sometimes not always. It also feels confused say if u are slowing down at a signal and picking up ,it jolts sometimes as if in wrong gear.
3: Do you find the car a little bit lathargic overall ?
4: How many Kms has your car down till now and what tyre pressure do you maintain?

Because of rains my fog lamps seems quite foggy and some water seems to have gotten into them. i guess i was too used to the smoothness of my honda city Ivtec AT before the rapid so feel the AT is a little bit jerky and rides the clutch on D2 quite a lot.

1: Did u buy your extended warranty? if yes, then after how long did u received them from Akoda?
2: Do you find any kinda jerks or judder in the Dsg when the car moves from d1 to d2 ? Mine does sometimes not always. It also feels confused say if u are slowing down at a signal and picking up ,it jolts sometimes as if in wrong gear.
3: Do you find the car a little bit lathargic overall ?
4: How many Kms has your car down till now and what tyre pressure do you maintain?

Answering out of turn, but hope it helps. Yes, I do feel some jerks when the car moves to d2 in crawling traffic but not otherwise. My car also felt a bit lethargic until the routine check up at 7500 kms. I believe some remapping was done at that visit. I have done 11K Kms so far and maintain, 32 psi for solo city driving.

Hi Kiran, Which month did u get your car? I got my car delivered last month.

I have some queries if you can address them

1: Did u buy your extended warranty? if yes, then after how long did u received them from Akoda?

2: Do you find any kinda jerks or judder in the Dsg when the car moves from d1 to d2 ? Mine does sometimes not always. It also feels confused say if u are slowing down at a signal and picking up ,it jolts sometimes as if in wrong gear.

3: Do you find the car a little bit lathargic overall ?

4: How many Kms has your car down till now and what tyre pressure do you maintain?

Because of rains my fog lamps seems quite foggy and some water seems to have gotten into them. i guess i was too used to the smoothness of my honda city Ivtec AT before the rapid so feel the AT is a little bit jerky and rides the clutch on D2 quite a lot.

Hi abhijit,
Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the club. I ll answer your questions one by one. I got my car delivered on 2 april 2015. And when i bought insurance and EW were not free.

1. I paid for EW around 1 month back and got the EW certificate through courier today. I paid 17700 for 2 yrs EW.

2. I dont feel any judder when moving to higher gear i.e 1->2->3. But sometimes occassionally i feel a jerk while gear changes from d3 to d2. That i feel is beacause of wrong gear. But its very rare.

3. Sometimes i do, but try to drive little spiritedly for about a km or so then i feel the transmission will return to its "normal" state.

4. I have done 4100kms in little over 3 months. I maintain 32psi in all tyres for both city and highway runs.

I dont have any problem with fog lights due to rain. Would recommend you to check with skoda service centre to check if there are any gaps through which the water may be seeping.

Hi abhijit,
Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the club. I ll answer your questions one by one. I got my car delivered on 2 april 2015. And when i bought insurance and EW were not free.

1. I paid for EW around 1 month back and got the EW certificate through courier today. I paid 17700 for 2 yrs EW.

2. I dont feel any judder when moving to higher gear i.e 1->2->3. But sometimes occassionally i feel a jerk while gear changes from d3 to d2. That i feel is beacause of wrong gear. But its very rare.

3. Sometimes i do, but try to drive little spiritedly for about a km or so then i feel the transmission will return to its "normal" state.

4. I have done 4100kms in little over 3 months. I maintain 32psi in all tyres for both city and highway runs.

I dont have any problem with fog lights due to rain. Would recommend you to check with skoda service centre to check if there are any gaps through which the water may be seeping.

Hi Kiran, what's the EW card that you got? My dealer just gave me the ICICI policy which covers the extended warranty for 2 years after initial expiry of 2 years. Hope that is the one you are referring to?

Hi Kiran, what's the EW card that you got? My dealer just gave me the ICICI policy which covers the extended warranty for 2 years after initial expiry of 2 years. Hope that is the one you are referring to?

Hi. I got a skoda extended warranty booklet (which is similar to the standard warranty booklet) and a policy certificate printed on skoda letterhead. I suppose the warranty is issued by bajaj allianz in my case.

Hi. I got a skoda extended warranty booklet (which is similar to the standard warranty booklet) and a policy certificate printed on skoda letterhead. I suppose the warranty is issued by bajaj allianz in my case.

I guess I will have to escalate the matter in that case. I have just received the policy document from ICICI Lombard and nothing else. Any pointers on contact points in Skoda who can help for a quicker response?

I guess I will have to escalate the matter in that case. I have just received the policy document from ICICI Lombard and nothing else. Any pointers on contact points in Skoda who can help for a quicker response?

Who in your respective showroom have u been contacting regarding your EW? It normally takes little over a month to get the EW booklet.

While I sincerely hope that you have had no issues with your AT gearboxes, can you please share anything you may have found or experienced otherwise?

Thanks in anticipation of a response.

Sorry for the delayed response. Too busy with some work related issues. Anyway. I have now completed 10,000 KMS in my car and DSG is as smooth as ever. No issues at all till now. Now that I have completed 10K KMS I know a little more about its behavior, which I have listed below

1. It hesitates to upshift if you are riding up an incline, which can get irritating as you know you do well in a higher gear. you can always shift to manual if you are noticing too much of this behavior

2. If you have a heavy foot like me, downshifts are more rapid than up shifts, I am not sure the software behind the gearbox is adaptive to make this judgment, but certainly seems so.

3. In city getting up to 5th gear is a rare scenario. 6th and 7th gear is virtually impossible unless you are on a ring road or NICE road in the night. The car drives mostly in 3rd and 4th gear, which for some might be an issue as they might be used to getting into 5th gear more often. This also might be purely my driving style, others can confirm

I dont feel any judder when moving to higher gear i.e 1->2->3. But sometimes occassionally i feel a jerk while gear changes from d3 to d2. That i feel is beacause of wrong gear. But its very rare.

I have understood that this is somewhat common to the DQ200 gearbox. Hopefully something that can be gotten used to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by charansuki

Sorry for the delayed response. Too busy with some work related issues. Anyway. I have now completed 10,000 KMS in my car and DSG is as smooth as ever. No issues at all till now. Now that I have completed 10K KMS I know a little more about its behavior, which I have listed below

Hey no worries and thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm quite bowled over by the DSG (having driven both the CVT & AMT on longish TDs) and its practicality in the ever growing traffic situation and hence considering the Rapid seriously.

I'm not sure how good a driving practice this is, but I feel very comfortable shifing to manual mode often. In fact the easy of shifting, i.e. not having to depress the clutch, is very addictive. Not sure how this augurs for the gearbox?

Quote:

Originally Posted by charansuki

All the best with your car hunt

Thanks again Charan & Kiran ... BTW, my SA called me and offered a Jan '15 made car in Silver with black package. They are apparently offering me a 25k discount on top of insurance and warranty. Have paid a token amount with zero-penalty-cancellation clause just to think things over - just a bit apprehensive since its over 6 months old.

Awaiting the S-Cross to further my decision.

Last edited by pannags : 22nd July 2015 at 14:40.
Reason: corrected a typo

Its buttersmooth to drive. If you are in the passenger seat or at the back, you wont even realise that its a diesel mill working under the hood.
That said DSG have had realibility issues which VW group have supposedly fixed by using mineral oil instead of synthetic for its transmissions. Neverthless it would be better to take extended warranty just to be fuss free. I drive in very congested roads in bangalore and take it out on highways frequently and its been nothing short of a bliss to drive this car.
I would suggest you to go ahead with the purchase.

Even I read that the issue was resolved after using mineral oil. However, both VW and SKODA dealers here in Pune tell me that the oil used in Vento and Rapid is synthetic and the DSG failure issue is not being faced anymore. I tried to debate the synthetic/mineral oil issue with the VW sales rep but in vain. I am really doubtful now what they actually use. Can any of the Rapid owner here confirm which oil is being used in their car? Thanks a ton!!